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PARIS – There it was, magically empty, on a discreet corner, never spotted by the tourist magma; my favorite little table since the 1980s at the Cafe de Flore in St Germain. I took possession, ordered a Welsh rarebit and a glass of Chablis, and was back in business, reading and watching the world go by for the first time since the fall of King Sarko.

First impression; where the hell is my bookshop? The venerable La Hune, right across from my point of view, looked like it had been hit by a Hellfire; thank Zeus it had moved nearby. Second, and more auspicious impression; the Flore was BHL-free; that is, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, aka BHL, was busy promoting his next war somewhere else.

BHL is not merely a philosopher/writer/film maker; he’s first and foremost the CEO of a gigantic PR operation erected to the perennial glory of BHL. He virtually rules the French cultural arena, the way Christopher Hitchens thought he ruled in the US and Britain.

May we live in tawdry times; if only Sartre was alive to kick BHL back to his intellectual kindergarten. BHL recently arrived at the Cannes Film Festival carrying a smatter of Libyan North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) rebels as pets – companions of his “liberation” adventure such as Mustapha El-Zagizli from Benghazi, proudly displayed as the “prince of the shabab”, and General Ramadan Zarmouth from Misrata.

Colonel Gaddafi used to pitch tents in Rome and have the hem of his gorgeous gowns kissed by Western potentates. Libyan NATO rebels, for their part, were dazed and confused by the explosive Cannes red-carpet experience.

Crucially, alongside his pet Libyans, who carped about the “unity of the revolution”, BHL also brought – what else – pet Syrians; two Kurds and two shady characters in dark glasses and with their heads covered by Syrian flags, described as “combatants who had left Syria in hiding only a few hours ago to discover The Oath of Tobruk”.

So here we have certified Zionist BHL bringing his token Arab pets to watch the world premiere of his new movie; yes, the whole thing had to be a part of yet another BHL-glorifying PR exercise. After winning virtually by himself the Libyan war – according to his own “narrative” – BHL was now stressing that “what was done in Benghazi was not easier than what should be done in Homs”. Waiter, please bring some regime change with my Chablis.

Le guerre, c’est moi
As for the movie, now showing in France, and already sold to the US market, it might aspire to qualify as a surrealist piece worthy of Alfred Jarry. But as hyperactive peacock, BHL totally lacks any self-deprecation traits, what’s left is BHL the film director filming himself as the director of history in the making. This is how a centuries-old French literary/philosophical tradition ends: The Intellectual as Warmonger.